


We’re Five (and a half)

by deepestfathoms



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Blood Loss, Delirium, Fainting, Gen, Humor, Inspired by the one episode of Victorious, Kitty won’t stop kicking people, Light-Hearted, Performing While Unwell, but like. it’s funny, corn mint rhymes with doesn’t apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:54:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24263935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms
Summary: Anna can’t perform due to a major surgery, so the girl who gave her three pints of blood has to go on, instead.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	We’re Five (and a half)

“Catherine, this isn’t going to work!”

“Will you stop complaining? You’ve been on my ass about this since we got back from the hospital! Understand that Anna’s only understudy that’s free today won’t get here until her plane lands. Which will take four more hours!! We don’t have a choice!”

“Isn’t there anyone else that can go on as Anna of Cleves?”

“Unless you can magically pull another girl who has all the lines and blocking memorized out of your ass, then I don’t think so!”

“Well, at least you don’t have to stand next to her!”

“Will you just be quiet?! You are driving me insane! And don’t forget it’s Kitty’s fault that more blood had to be taken!”

“It is not!”

“She played with the pouch and dropped it!!”

“…So?”

“Oh my god—”

Aragon rolled her eyes at the silver queen and stomped onto the stage. She diminished her rage when she got near their Anna of Cleves understudy- Joan, who had three pints of blood sucked out of her just an hour ago after the first two pouches were ruined by slippery hands and a certain hot pink queen with a mother who refuses to own up to what her daughter did. The blood was for the actual Cleves since the woman was going through surgery to get a hernia removed and Joan was the only person who shared her rare blood type: O-. And because she couldn’t be there, her donor had to go on for that evening show for her. And it wouldn’t have been a problem if, again, it hadn’t been three whole pints.

“How are you feeling, sweet girl?” Aragon asked, gently touching the understudy’s shoulder.

Joan looked up from her hands, which she had been gazing at as if they were made out of the most valuable jewels in human history. She blinked several times, but her eyes still remained very cloudy. Her pupils were way too big.

“‘M fine,” She said, reaching out to also touch Aragon’s shoulder, but missing completely. Her hand awkwardly flaps in the air, not understanding why there wasn’t a queen under its palm, then pulled back after a moment of hovering. “I’m feeling…great!”

Aragon smiled wryly. “That’s good. The costume feels okay?”

Joan looked down at the light blue alt costume she had been put into, since Cleves’ actual one didn’t fit her. She looked back up at Aragon with an awed expression.

“I forgot I was even wearing clothes!” She exclaimed. “Wow. This is very…..” She trailed off.

“Joan.” Aragon shook her slightly.

“Hi.” Joan snapped awake. She reached out and felt Aragon’s face. “Hello.”

“Hello, sweetheart.” Aragon replied. “We’re going to get started really soon. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Joan nodded lazily. “I got all the lines! And dances!”

“Good.”

“Great.”

Aragon gave her another quick smile before patting her shoulder and getting into line with the others. Several of them were glancing nervously at Joan, who kept swaying treacherously on the heels she was wearing.

“Ooh can’t see—” Joan said after the blackout.

“ _Hsst_.” Jane hissed.

It wasn’t long before Ex-Wives began and it went surprisingly well. Not great, not even good, but it was enough. Perhaps new viewers would think that Anna of Cleves bumping into literally everyone was how the song was always scripted. But at least the little blood Joan still had pumping through her body fueled her enough to stay in tune and remember all the wounds, even if the introduction solo was mumbled more than spoken. But still!! They made it— SHE made it.

Somehow.

The show ran through the first speaking portion until they eventually got to the first lady in waiting shout-out. The sudden rise in Aragon’s tone seemed to snap Joan out of whatever reverie that had been hypnotizing her and she spun around to face the band so fast she nearly spiraled right down to the floor in a tornado of baby blue and black rhinestones.

“We got Maggie on the guitar!” Anne shouted, and her dear friend played her solo.

“Bessie…yeah!” Joan said helpfully, flapping a hand in the bassist’s direction, who was so daunted by the awkward introduction that she hesitated a second before rushing into her solo.

“And killing it on the keys, we got Joan,” Jane said, slightly startled by the actual Joan’s mess up.

“That’s me,” Joan whispered to herself as she alt played her bit.

“And with beats so sick they’ll give you gout is Maria on the drums!” Aragon said hurriedly, casting Joan an uneasy glance.

“So, you’ve come to party with us old school.” Joan said right after, and although her timing was on point, she somehow managed to slur every single word in the line.

“Really, really old school,” Jane recited, then began to laugh. Joan laughed, too, until Kitty not-so-subtly kicked her in the shin, which was nearly enough to bring her to the floor if Jane hadn’t shot out an arm and grabbed the girl by the shoulder. Her laughter died off as she craned her neck around and shot Kitty a “don’t you dare do that again or so help me—” look.

Jane didn’t release Joan’s shoulder until they got to the “we’ve heard it all” bit. She actually found herself wincing when she pulled her hand back and saw the five angry red marks left in the girl’s skin from her pointy, perfectly manicured fingernails.

“Who lasted the longest was the strongest.”

“The biggest sinner is always the winner.”

“Who had the son takes number one.”

“Who was most chased shall be first…”

“Placed,” Jane whispered.

“Cased!” Joan shouted with too much volume and enthusiasm.

“No, placed!” Jane whisper-yelled again.

“Huh?”

“Who was most chased shall be first placed!” Jane finally just said for Joan.

“…The most inglorious shall be victorious!”

“The winning contestant was the most Protestant!”

And so, the show went on, punctuated by perfectly recited lines by five queens and horribly slurred ones by a lady in waiting missing three pints of her blood.

No Way soon began. All the singing and lines were done as usual, no problem, everything on point. The dancing, on the other hand… Well, the Anna of Cleves was a bit off, reviewers would definitely say after that performance. Like, really off. Like, “she’s two feet away from the other dancers and is continuously being chased down, grappled, and pulled back over by the Catherine Parr” kind of off. But nobody fell over, so it was okay!

However, those reviewers would definitely also mention how the Anna of Cleves weirdly said, “Why is she on her phone?” and then got mouthed to “shut the fuck up” by the Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard during the bit right before Don’t Lose Ur Head. But again! Nobody fell during that song, either! But then again, there were several close calls… That Anna of Cleves was wobbling A LOT. And then there was the blocking for Wearing Yellow To A Funeral where she would reach out and grab Anne Boleyn to stop her from cussing, but she apparently reached way too far, tipped forward, and definitely would have careened right off the stage if the Anne hadn’t spun around and caught her a second before she keeled over the edge.

“Over my dead body,” Aragon said immediately after that predicament, although her voice was lacking its usual bite to the words. It was covered up completely by worry for the girl Anne was trying to stand up straight.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jane said, moving on. “I’m pretty sure it’s my turn now.”

“You?” Joan said, voice dripping with exhaustion and fatigue. Her energy was running out fast.

“Oh, weren’t you the one he truly loved?” Kitty teased.

“Yeah, didn’t you give him the son he so desperately wanted?” Aragon added.

“Yeah, I actually had a daughter and he copped my head off.” Anne quipped.

“I had a son named Hercules,” Joan mused, and Cathy quickly covered her mouth before Kitty could kick her again.

Jane began her monologue and then soon started Heart of Stone. Aragon guided Joan over to the steps so she and the other queens could sit down during that song.

“How are you feeling?” Aragon whispered to Joan, rubbing her shoulder tenderly.

“Huh?” Joan said loudly, which caused a cacophony of “Shh!”’s and a confused glance over the shoulder by Jane.

“I asked how you’re feeling,” Aragon said again. She took one of Joan’s hands and stroked the knuckles with her thumb. She couldn’t tell if the girl was trembling out of fear or exhaustion—maybe both? Or maybe she was just vibrating as a symptom of blood loss.

“Oh.” Joan said. Then, she threw her head back, laughed, and didn’t say anything.

Kitty groaned and rolled her eyes. “We can’t keep her on anymore. She’s ruining the show!”

“Will you shut your fucking mouth?” Aragon hissed. “You kicked her! Oh yeah, don’t think I didn’t see that one, princess.”

Kitty huffed and looked away angrily.

“Yeah, but she has a point,” Anne said gently. “Look at her. Joan is suffering.”

“No I’m not,” Joan mumbled. “‘M just tired…” Her head lolled to the side and rested against Aragon’s shoulder.

“See!”

“No, no, no, no—” Joan spoke again. “I’m just- I’m okay— I just— Do you think I can sit down during Haus of Holbein?”

———

 _“Not only did the show as a whole feel like a humorous fever dream,”_ A Gen Z reviewer would later report on their blog, _“but the most relatable thing that happened in the entire performance was when the Anna of Cleves sang Haus on Holbein while waving glow sticks and wearing giant light up sunglasses on the floor!”_

———

mess

/mes/

  1. a situation or state of affairs that is confused or full of difficulties.



“the economy is still in a terrible mess”

Calling Get Down such a word would be an understatement.

If it wasn’t the slurred singing, then it was the way Joan would seemingly black out in the middle of the song, and if it wasn’t either of those, then it was definitely how she felt the need to say, “I don’t know how to snap” into the microphone at the very beginning when everyone was supposed to snap along to the beat.

But that wasn’t all. Unfortunately.

The lack of blood in her body already made her very dizzy and out of it, but all the dancing and moving around definitely wasn’t helping. Her ankles would frequently buckle under her own weight and she would stumble awkwardly to the side, causing one of the other queens to frantically scramble after her and steady her.

And then there was the part where she was supposed to squat and sing to the front row near the very end. But that didn’t go as planned, because she was unable to hold herself up while kneeling and would have fallen right off the stage if Aragon hadn’t lunged forward and caught her. She then had to hold Joan up for the rest of that bit and then held her back to her feet afterwards. As she was slur-singing, Joan patted Aragon’s shoulder in thanks—except she missed Aragon’s shoulder and instead patted her face. Several times.

“Cause I’m the queen of the castle!” Joan finally concluded, then nearly fell over again, but the queens managed to anchor her upright. She winced at the applause she got. “Absolutely..heartbreaking….”

“That doesn’t sound horrible at all,” Aragon said.

“You- you are horrible..at all,” Joan garbled, stumbling forward slightly and Anne has to jump forward quickly and assist her down the staircase before she could fall and hurt herself. “I probably…won’t win the..uhh. Oh well, back to the— the— uh…”

“Palace,” The queens whispered in unison.

“Back to the palace!”

And so, the show went on. At that point, Joan’s brain had practically melted- the poor girl couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore, and was solely running on muscle memory. Which wasn’t much because she wasn’t a regular performer.

“Guys, I have…the plague!” Joan shouted after the “boohoo baby Mary” speech by Jane. The queens turned to her and, as scripted, began to fuss and worry loudly. “Lol! Just kidding! I just got three pints of blood taken out of me and now I can’t feel a—”

A series of loud hushes and stern looks came from the queens until she shut her mouth. She gave them all a tired, pitiful look, now regretting her decision to do this—although she didn’t really remember WHAT she was doing at this point. She’s pretty sure she was performing…but she wasn’t completely sure.

All You Wanna Do soon began and that seemed to be an eternity of wrong dance moves, slurred harmonies, awkwardly placed hands on Kitty’s body, and several kicks from Kitty herself. In Joan’s shins.

During the big fight after that song, Joan just stood there looking dazed. The queens waited for her to say her line about Cathy’s consciousness, but she didn’t, so Anne had to jump in and say it for her while Kitty glared at the delirious understudy.

After that, I Don’t Need Your Love started up and Joan was content to just sit down and let her heart rest and resupply her body with blood, but she soon had to get back on her feet during the segment in the middle of the song.

“Who was Henry the VII’s wife?” Cathy asked.

Over the mix “I don’t know”’s, Joan mumbled, “I don’t even know where I am…”

Which was true. The blood loss was REALLY getting to her head.

“Yeah, because if we had realized,” Aragon said further in, “we could have thought of some really cool ways to, like, reclaim our stories for ourselves. You know, remove Henry’s love from our lives once and for all.”

“Aww,” Joan whined. “We could have done it as a thong.”

“SONG—” The queens yelped in a harmony of panic.

“Song!” Joan quickly corrected herself, but the damage was already done. The audience was going nuts at her mistake. Now the remainders of I Don’t Need Your Love would never recover. And it didn’t. But it was over.

Joan couldn’t stand still as she stood in the lineup for the last few lines. Her eyes kept closing and then snapping open—she didn’t know how much longer she could stay awake.

“We may just be remembered for being…” She trailed off tiredly.

“Married to Henry,” Kitty hissed, fed up with the understudy.

“Carried to Penry.” Joan said.

After a few confused glances to her, the show went on…somehow.

“Yes, we can redefine how we tell our stories,” Aragon said as the show was wrapping up, “but we can’t rewrite them.”

“And we wished we could tell you our lives had happy endings.” Jane added.

“But in…brutality…corn mint…” Joan slurred, then nearly collapsed but Jane was able to get her by the arm and hold her upright. Jane also had to keep her from beelining off the stage after the mock-ending.

“This is our show and we can literally do whatever we want!” Anne said, waltzing back up to the front of the stage. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Jane tugging Joan along with her.

“So, London, because we have five minutes left of the show!” Kitty went on, then looked at Joan expectantly.

Except Joan didn’t say her next line.

“We’ve decided to do our own,” Jane mouthed to Joan.

“Cheese hymen to do our clone,” Joan attempted to recite.

Jane stared at her in baffled horror before sputtering out, “Edited version.”

“Of what…really went down…all those years…bow tie….” Joan gurgled, her eyes fluttering shut. Kitty elbowed her in the rib cage to wake her up, which was rude, but at least worked. For now.

“Because we’re one of a kind,” Cathy began, glancing nervously at the understudy’s swaying form.

“No category,” Kitty went on.

“Chew many tears,” Joan mumbled weakly, and nobody cared enough to correct her at that point.

“Lost in history,”

“We’re free,”

“To take our crown in glory,”

“For five minutes,” They all, minus Joan, who was just awkwardly babbling along, harmonized. “We’re Six!”

And so, Six began. And it went really well if you didn’t look at the understudy for Anna of Cleves standing very still, clapping out of tune with everyone else. Or listen to the way she sang her bit as, “What a shame…la la la la la la la la la……” and then just hummed the rest weakly.

The show soon concluded. The final applause was given. There was an uproar of cheers, despite the awkwardness that happened during the entire performance. But it was over!

“Do you want one more song?” Kitty said, smirking teasingly at the audience.

The people cheered, ready for the MegaSix, and it was at that moment when Joan finally collapsed.

Kitty looked at her, then looked back at the audience, and said, “Nevermind.”


End file.
